SummaryThe applicant will collaborate with Irish, European and U.S.-based colleagues to develop a sustainable biorefinery and bioenergy industry in Ireland and Europe. The focus of this ERC Starting Grant will be the application of classical microbiological, physiological and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assays, to qualitatively and quantitatively characterize microbial communities underpinning novel and innovative, low-temperature, anaerobic waste (and other biomass) conversion technologies, including municipal wastewater treatment and, demonstration- and full-scale biorefinery applications.
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a naturally-occurring process, which is widely applied for the conversion of waste to methane-containing biogas. Low-temperature (<20 degrees C) AD has been applied by the applicant as a cost-effective alternative to mesophilic (c. 35C) AD for the treatment of several waste categories. However, the microbiology of low-temperature AD is poorly understood. The applicant will work with microbial consortia isolated from anaerobic bioreactors, which have been operated for long-term experiments (>3.5 years), and include organic acid-oxidizing, hydrogen-producing syntrophic microbes and hydrogen-consuming methanogens. A major focus of the project will be the ecophysiology of psychrotolerant and psychrophilic methanogens already identified and cultivated by the applicant. The project will also investigate the role(s) of poorly-understood Crenarchaeota populations and homoacetogenic bacteria, in complex consortia. The host organization is a leading player in the microbiology of waste-to-energy applications. The applicant will train a team of scientists in all aspects of the microbiology and bioengineering of biomass conversion systems.

The applicant will collaborate with Irish, European and U.S.-based colleagues to develop a sustainable biorefinery and bioenergy industry in Ireland and Europe. The focus of this ERC Starting Grant will be the application of classical microbiological, physiological and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assays, to qualitatively and quantitatively characterize microbial communities underpinning novel and innovative, low-temperature, anaerobic waste (and other biomass) conversion technologies, including municipal wastewater treatment and, demonstration- and full-scale biorefinery applications.
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a naturally-occurring process, which is widely applied for the conversion of waste to methane-containing biogas. Low-temperature (<20 degrees C) AD has been applied by the applicant as a cost-effective alternative to mesophilic (c. 35C) AD for the treatment of several waste categories. However, the microbiology of low-temperature AD is poorly understood. The applicant will work with microbial consortia isolated from anaerobic bioreactors, which have been operated for long-term experiments (>3.5 years), and include organic acid-oxidizing, hydrogen-producing syntrophic microbes and hydrogen-consuming methanogens. A major focus of the project will be the ecophysiology of psychrotolerant and psychrophilic methanogens already identified and cultivated by the applicant. The project will also investigate the role(s) of poorly-understood Crenarchaeota populations and homoacetogenic bacteria, in complex consortia. The host organization is a leading player in the microbiology of waste-to-energy applications. The applicant will train a team of scientists in all aspects of the microbiology and bioengineering of biomass conversion systems.

Max ERC Funding

1 499 797 €

Duration

Start date: 2011-05-01, End date: 2016-04-30

Project acronymADNABIOARC

ProjectFrom the earliest modern humans to the onset of farming (45,000-4,500 BP): the role of climate, life-style, health, migration and selection in shaping European population history

Researcher (PI)Ron Pinhasi

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2010-StG_20091209

SummaryThe colonisation of Europe by anatomically modern humans (AMHs) ca. 45,000 years before present (BP) and the transition to farming ca. 8,000 BP are two major events in human prehistory. Both events involved certain cultural and biological adaptations, technological innovations, and behavioural plasticity which are unique to our species. The reconstruction of these processes and the causality between them has so far remained elusive due to technological, methodological and logistical complexities. Major developments in our understanding of the anthropology of the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, and advances in ancient DNA (aDNA) technology and chronometric methods now allow us to assess in sufficient resolution the interface between these evolutionary processes, and changes in human culture and behaviour.
The proposed research will investigate the complex interface between the morphological, genetic, behavioural, and cultural factors that shaped the population history of European AMHs. The PI s interdisciplinary expertise in these areas, his access to and experience of relevant skeletal collections, and his ongoing European collaborations will allow significant progress in addressing these fundamental questions. The approach taken will include (a) the collection of bioarchaeological, aDNA, stable isotope (for the analysis of ancient diet) and radiometric data on 500 skeletons from key sites/phases in Europe and western Anatolia, and (b) the application of existing and novel aDNA, bioarchaeological and simulation methodologies. This research will yield results that transform our current understanding of major demographic and evolutionary processes and will place Europe at the forefront of anthropological biological and genetic research.

The colonisation of Europe by anatomically modern humans (AMHs) ca. 45,000 years before present (BP) and the transition to farming ca. 8,000 BP are two major events in human prehistory. Both events involved certain cultural and biological adaptations, technological innovations, and behavioural plasticity which are unique to our species. The reconstruction of these processes and the causality between them has so far remained elusive due to technological, methodological and logistical complexities. Major developments in our understanding of the anthropology of the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, and advances in ancient DNA (aDNA) technology and chronometric methods now allow us to assess in sufficient resolution the interface between these evolutionary processes, and changes in human culture and behaviour.
The proposed research will investigate the complex interface between the morphological, genetic, behavioural, and cultural factors that shaped the population history of European AMHs. The PI s interdisciplinary expertise in these areas, his access to and experience of relevant skeletal collections, and his ongoing European collaborations will allow significant progress in addressing these fundamental questions. The approach taken will include (a) the collection of bioarchaeological, aDNA, stable isotope (for the analysis of ancient diet) and radiometric data on 500 skeletons from key sites/phases in Europe and western Anatolia, and (b) the application of existing and novel aDNA, bioarchaeological and simulation methodologies. This research will yield results that transform our current understanding of major demographic and evolutionary processes and will place Europe at the forefront of anthropological biological and genetic research.

Max ERC Funding

1 088 386 €

Duration

Start date: 2011-01-01, End date: 2015-12-31

Project acronymBABE

ProjectBodies across borders: oral and visual memory in Europe and beyond

Researcher (PI)Luisella Passerini

Host Institution (HI)EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406

SummaryThis project intends to study intercultural connections in contemporary Europe, engaging both native and ‘new’ Europeans. These connections are woven through the faculties of embodied subjects – memory, visuality and mobility – and concern the movement of people, ideas and images across the borders of European nation-states. These faculties are connected with that of affect, an increasingly important concept in history and the social sciences. Memory will be understood not only as oral or direct memory, but also as cultural memory, embodied in various cultural products. Our study aims to understand new forms of European identity, as these develop in an increasingly diasporic world. Europe today is not only a key site of immigration, after having been for centuries an area of emigration, but also a crucial point of arrival in a global network designed by mobile human beings.
Three parts will make up the project. The first will engage with bodies, their gendered dimension, performative capacities and connection to place. It will explore the ways certain bodies are ‘emplaced’ as ‘European’, while others are marked as alien, and contrast these discourses with the counter-narratives by visual artists. The second part will extend further the reflection on the role of the visual arts in challenging an emergent ‘Fortress Europe’ but also in re-imagining the memory of European colonialism. The work of some key artists will be shown to students in Italy and the Netherlands, both recent migrants and ‘natives’, creating an ‘induced reception’. The final part of the project will look at alternative imaginations of Europe, investigating the oral memories and ‘mental maps’ created by two migrant communities in Europe: from Peru and from the Horn of Africa.
Examining the heterogeneous micro-productions of mobility – whether ‘real’ or imagined/envisioned – will thus yield important lessons for the historical understanding of inclusion and exclusion in today’s Europe.

This project intends to study intercultural connections in contemporary Europe, engaging both native and ‘new’ Europeans. These connections are woven through the faculties of embodied subjects – memory, visuality and mobility – and concern the movement of people, ideas and images across the borders of European nation-states. These faculties are connected with that of affect, an increasingly important concept in history and the social sciences. Memory will be understood not only as oral or direct memory, but also as cultural memory, embodied in various cultural products. Our study aims to understand new forms of European identity, as these develop in an increasingly diasporic world. Europe today is not only a key site of immigration, after having been for centuries an area of emigration, but also a crucial point of arrival in a global network designed by mobile human beings.
Three parts will make up the project. The first will engage with bodies, their gendered dimension, performative capacities and connection to place. It will explore the ways certain bodies are ‘emplaced’ as ‘European’, while others are marked as alien, and contrast these discourses with the counter-narratives by visual artists. The second part will extend further the reflection on the role of the visual arts in challenging an emergent ‘Fortress Europe’ but also in re-imagining the memory of European colonialism. The work of some key artists will be shown to students in Italy and the Netherlands, both recent migrants and ‘natives’, creating an ‘induced reception’. The final part of the project will look at alternative imaginations of Europe, investigating the oral memories and ‘mental maps’ created by two migrant communities in Europe: from Peru and from the Horn of Africa.
Examining the heterogeneous micro-productions of mobility – whether ‘real’ or imagined/envisioned – will thus yield important lessons for the historical understanding of inclusion and exclusion in today’s Europe.

Max ERC Funding

1 488 501 €

Duration

Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2018-05-31

Project acronymBioLEAP

ProjectBiotechnological optimization of light use efficiency in algae photobioreactors

Researcher (PI)Tomas Morosinotto

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), LS9, ERC-2012-StG_20111109

SummaryNew renewable energy source are highly needed to compensate exhausting fossil fuels reserves and reduce greenhouse gases emissions. Some species of algae have an interesting potential as feedstock for the production of biodiesel thanks to their ability to accumulate large amount of lipids. Strong research efforts are however needed to fulfil this potential and address many issues involving optimization of cultivation systems, biomass harvesting and algae genetic improvement. This proposal aims to address one of these issues, the optimization of algae light use efficiency. Light, in fact, provides the energy supporting algae growth and must be exploited with the highest possible efficiency to achieve sufficient productivity.
In a photobioreactor algae are highly concentrated and this cause a inhomogeneous light distribution with a large fraction of the cells exposed to very low light or even in the dark. Algae are also actively mixed and they can abruptly move from dark to full illumination and vice versa. This proposal aims to assess how alternation of dark/light cycles affect algae growth and functionality of photosynthetic apparatus both in batch and continuous cultures. In collaboration with the Chemical Engineering department, experimental data will be exploited to build a model describing the photobioreactor, a fundamental tool to improve its design.
The other main scope of this proposal is the isolation of genetically improved strains more suitable to the artificial environment of a photobioreactor. A first part of the work of setting up protocols for transformation will be followed by a second phase for generation and selection of mutants with altered photosynthetic performances. Transcriptome analyses in different light conditions will also be instrumental to identify genes to be targeted by genetic engineering.

New renewable energy source are highly needed to compensate exhausting fossil fuels reserves and reduce greenhouse gases emissions. Some species of algae have an interesting potential as feedstock for the production of biodiesel thanks to their ability to accumulate large amount of lipids. Strong research efforts are however needed to fulfil this potential and address many issues involving optimization of cultivation systems, biomass harvesting and algae genetic improvement. This proposal aims to address one of these issues, the optimization of algae light use efficiency. Light, in fact, provides the energy supporting algae growth and must be exploited with the highest possible efficiency to achieve sufficient productivity.
In a photobioreactor algae are highly concentrated and this cause a inhomogeneous light distribution with a large fraction of the cells exposed to very low light or even in the dark. Algae are also actively mixed and they can abruptly move from dark to full illumination and vice versa. This proposal aims to assess how alternation of dark/light cycles affect algae growth and functionality of photosynthetic apparatus both in batch and continuous cultures. In collaboration with the Chemical Engineering department, experimental data will be exploited to build a model describing the photobioreactor, a fundamental tool to improve its design.
The other main scope of this proposal is the isolation of genetically improved strains more suitable to the artificial environment of a photobioreactor. A first part of the work of setting up protocols for transformation will be followed by a second phase for generation and selection of mutants with altered photosynthetic performances. Transcriptome analyses in different light conditions will also be instrumental to identify genes to be targeted by genetic engineering.

Host Institution (HI)THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406

SummaryThrough animal domestication humans profoundly altered their relationship with nature, controlling the breeding of their major food sources for material, social or symbolic profit. Understanding this complex process is a compelling research aim. There is a need to develop new high-resolution genetic tools to put flesh on the bones of this two-millenium long transition. These will take advantage of very recent advances: targeted next generation DNA sequencing, high throughput screening of expertly provenanced archaeological samples, and emerging knowledge of modern cattle, sheep and goat genome science plus their genetic geographies. Combining these, this proposal will develop an ancient DNA data matrix that will be unparalleled in archaeological science. These data will unlock the key genetic changes that accompany the domestic state and the breeding structures that are a consequence of human management. It will also identify the wild and proto-domestic populations that later herds emerge from. A more precise geography and timing of the key changes will enable richer contextualising inform our assessement of why these changes take place. The 10,000 year matrix for each species will function as a standard spatiotemporal reference grid on which any subsequent bone or animal artefact may be placed i.e. via genetic postcoding. Exceptional discontinuities in the matrix will highlight points of strong historical interest such as the emergence of new trade networks, migrations and periods of economic turbulence - perhaps driven by climate fluctuations or plagues. The final work objectives will focus on diachronic sample assemblages selected to have particular import for both historical events and transitions in material culture. For example, manuscript vellum samples will give a uniquely dated series that will enable correlation of genetic change with historical studies of the timing and impact of past animal plagues (e.g. in C 14th and C 18th Europe).

Through animal domestication humans profoundly altered their relationship with nature, controlling the breeding of their major food sources for material, social or symbolic profit. Understanding this complex process is a compelling research aim. There is a need to develop new high-resolution genetic tools to put flesh on the bones of this two-millenium long transition. These will take advantage of very recent advances: targeted next generation DNA sequencing, high throughput screening of expertly provenanced archaeological samples, and emerging knowledge of modern cattle, sheep and goat genome science plus their genetic geographies. Combining these, this proposal will develop an ancient DNA data matrix that will be unparalleled in archaeological science. These data will unlock the key genetic changes that accompany the domestic state and the breeding structures that are a consequence of human management. It will also identify the wild and proto-domestic populations that later herds emerge from. A more precise geography and timing of the key changes will enable richer contextualising inform our assessement of why these changes take place. The 10,000 year matrix for each species will function as a standard spatiotemporal reference grid on which any subsequent bone or animal artefact may be placed i.e. via genetic postcoding. Exceptional discontinuities in the matrix will highlight points of strong historical interest such as the emergence of new trade networks, migrations and periods of economic turbulence - perhaps driven by climate fluctuations or plagues. The final work objectives will focus on diachronic sample assemblages selected to have particular import for both historical events and transitions in material culture. For example, manuscript vellum samples will give a uniquely dated series that will enable correlation of genetic change with historical studies of the timing and impact of past animal plagues (e.g. in C 14th and C 18th Europe).

Max ERC Funding

2 499 693 €

Duration

Start date: 2012-07-01, End date: 2018-06-30

Project acronymDISCOMPOSE

ProjectDisasters, Communication and Politics in South-Western Europe: the Making of Emergency Response Policies in the Early Modern Age

Researcher (PI)Domenico CECERE

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2017-STG

SummaryThe connections between the circulation of news of extreme events, the making of influential narratives of collective traumas and the development of emergency response policies lie at the heart of this research proposal, which focuses on four Southern European areas: Catalonia, Naples, Sicily and Valencia, from the 16th to the 18th century. How did accounts and individual memories of extreme events amount to authoritative interpretations? In which ways, and to what extent, did the latter orient collective behaviours and the recovery process, in both the short and the long term?
Starting from the assumption that human relations are enhanced by the increased levels of socialisation that commonly occur in the aftermath of shocking events, which trigger the sharing of information, opinions and memories; and that the emotional impact of such events is likely to create a public opinion that draws attention to government’s action; the research proposal aims to contribute new insights into these issues by adopting an original methodology, developed across a variety of disciplines, including Cultural and Social History, Textual Criticism, Philology and Anthropology. Moreover, it will adopt a transnational perspective: since the selected regions belonged to the Spanish Monarchy, the development of practices and polices aimed to respond to disruption depended not only on the specific social and cultural features of local societies, but also on the circulation of political and technical staff, as well as on the sharing of knowledge, experiences and policy models, among the various areas of the Empire and its colonies. Studying the information exchange in the aftermath of disasters and the formation of an imagery of extraordinary events, will allow a comprehensive perspective on the policies and practices adopted by early modern societies to manage uncertainty, and on the potential impact that such narratives could have on the renegotiation of political and social relations.

The connections between the circulation of news of extreme events, the making of influential narratives of collective traumas and the development of emergency response policies lie at the heart of this research proposal, which focuses on four Southern European areas: Catalonia, Naples, Sicily and Valencia, from the 16th to the 18th century. How did accounts and individual memories of extreme events amount to authoritative interpretations? In which ways, and to what extent, did the latter orient collective behaviours and the recovery process, in both the short and the long term?
Starting from the assumption that human relations are enhanced by the increased levels of socialisation that commonly occur in the aftermath of shocking events, which trigger the sharing of information, opinions and memories; and that the emotional impact of such events is likely to create a public opinion that draws attention to government’s action; the research proposal aims to contribute new insights into these issues by adopting an original methodology, developed across a variety of disciplines, including Cultural and Social History, Textual Criticism, Philology and Anthropology. Moreover, it will adopt a transnational perspective: since the selected regions belonged to the Spanish Monarchy, the development of practices and polices aimed to respond to disruption depended not only on the specific social and cultural features of local societies, but also on the circulation of political and technical staff, as well as on the sharing of knowledge, experiences and policy models, among the various areas of the Empire and its colonies. Studying the information exchange in the aftermath of disasters and the formation of an imagery of extraordinary events, will allow a comprehensive perspective on the policies and practices adopted by early modern societies to manage uncertainty, and on the potential impact that such narratives could have on the renegotiation of political and social relations.

Max ERC Funding

1 481 813 €

Duration

Start date: 2018-02-01, End date: 2023-01-31

Project acronymEarlyModernCosmology

ProjectInstitutions and Metaphysics of Cosmology in the Epistemic Networks of Seventeenth-Century Europe

Researcher (PI)Pietro Daniel OMODEO

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA

Call DetailsConsolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2016-COG

SummaryThe focus of this project is the competing confessional discourses on cosmology of the seventeenth century, an epoch in which religious conflicts originated opposing ‘epistemic cultures’, which were embodied in scholarly institutions and networks such as the Protestant web of northern European universities or the global web of Jesuit colleges.
In the Early Modern Period cosmological controversies (over issues such as heliocentrism, plurality of worlds, space, infinity, cometary theory, celestial matter and fluidity) were heated and amplified by increasing political and confessional fragmentation. The Roman prohibition of the Copernican system (1616) and the extraordinary condemnation of Galileo (1633) accelerated the formation of competing cosmological cultures along confessional and political lines of alliance and opposition. This research project addresses the interrelations between [1.] cosmological debates in the northern European Protestant institutional networks of scholars and institutions and [2.] cosmological debates in Jesuit institutional networks aiming at [3.] a comparative assessment of early formations and transformations of epistemic webs. It considers parallelisms and contrasts, negotiations and intersections of seventeenth-century cosmological discourses between scholars, institutions and scientific communities belonging to different epistemic cultures. This endeavor brings into focus the political-confessional dimension of early-modern cosmology and shows how science is embedded in struggles for cultural hegemony, struggles which were at once institutional and ideological. While there is a great deal of in-depth study on the history of science in various early-modern confessional contexts, a comparative study bringing together the history of knowledge institutions and their metaphysical legitimation is still a desideratum.

The focus of this project is the competing confessional discourses on cosmology of the seventeenth century, an epoch in which religious conflicts originated opposing ‘epistemic cultures’, which were embodied in scholarly institutions and networks such as the Protestant web of northern European universities or the global web of Jesuit colleges.
In the Early Modern Period cosmological controversies (over issues such as heliocentrism, plurality of worlds, space, infinity, cometary theory, celestial matter and fluidity) were heated and amplified by increasing political and confessional fragmentation. The Roman prohibition of the Copernican system (1616) and the extraordinary condemnation of Galileo (1633) accelerated the formation of competing cosmological cultures along confessional and political lines of alliance and opposition. This research project addresses the interrelations between [1.] cosmological debates in the northern European Protestant institutional networks of scholars and institutions and [2.] cosmological debates in Jesuit institutional networks aiming at [3.] a comparative assessment of early formations and transformations of epistemic webs. It considers parallelisms and contrasts, negotiations and intersections of seventeenth-century cosmological discourses between scholars, institutions and scientific communities belonging to different epistemic cultures. This endeavor brings into focus the political-confessional dimension of early-modern cosmology and shows how science is embedded in struggles for cultural hegemony, struggles which were at once institutional and ideological. While there is a great deal of in-depth study on the history of science in various early-modern confessional contexts, a comparative study bringing together the history of knowledge institutions and their metaphysical legitimation is still a desideratum.

Max ERC Funding

1 999 976 €

Duration

Start date: 2017-11-01, End date: 2022-10-31

Project acronymEBLA CHORA

ProjectThe early state and its chora. Towns, villages and landscape at Ebla in Syria during the 3rd Millennium BC. Royal archives, visual and material culture, remote sensing and artificial neural networks

Researcher (PI)Paolo Matthiae

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2009-AdG

SummaryThe case of Ebla in northern Syria is certainly the most favourable one for enhancing our understanding of mechanisms of functioning of the early state. The discovery in 1975 of royal archives consisting of 17.000 cuneiform tablets dating to c. 2300 BC has supplied the scientific community with an invaluable mass of documents dealing with all aspects of state organization. These tablets inform us about the political, diplomatic and military affairs of the Eblaite state, as well as on the economic and social fabric of this early state formation. Further, considerable progresses during the past decade have been made at Ebla in seriating material culture assemblages, in interpreting the rich evidence for ancient visual communication and in exposing the urban structure. We now foresee a unique opportunity to test theories and models about the rise and structure of the early state by expanding the level of analysis to the landscape around Ebla: archaeological surface surveys, remote sensing, geomorphological studies will be evaluated together with the results of archaeological and geophysic investigations on village sites. Our research group has already considerable experience in developing calculation programs that employ along with traditional statistic and quantitative methods within a web GIS environment, including all the cuneiform tablets models of modern dynamic mathematics: the massive amount of data obtained from excavations, surveys, epigraphic studies, archeometric and archeobiological analyses will be combined and analyzed by means of mathematical, economical and computer science concepts and models, in order to build a multi-tier explanatory pattern which can be applied also to other early foci of urbanization in the Near East and elsewhere. We thus hope to gain a much richer historical framework and a sophisticated predictive model of general validity: until now no studies have ever focused on explanations of these phenomena on such an integrated scale

The case of Ebla in northern Syria is certainly the most favourable one for enhancing our understanding of mechanisms of functioning of the early state. The discovery in 1975 of royal archives consisting of 17.000 cuneiform tablets dating to c. 2300 BC has supplied the scientific community with an invaluable mass of documents dealing with all aspects of state organization. These tablets inform us about the political, diplomatic and military affairs of the Eblaite state, as well as on the economic and social fabric of this early state formation. Further, considerable progresses during the past decade have been made at Ebla in seriating material culture assemblages, in interpreting the rich evidence for ancient visual communication and in exposing the urban structure. We now foresee a unique opportunity to test theories and models about the rise and structure of the early state by expanding the level of analysis to the landscape around Ebla: archaeological surface surveys, remote sensing, geomorphological studies will be evaluated together with the results of archaeological and geophysic investigations on village sites. Our research group has already considerable experience in developing calculation programs that employ along with traditional statistic and quantitative methods within a web GIS environment, including all the cuneiform tablets models of modern dynamic mathematics: the massive amount of data obtained from excavations, surveys, epigraphic studies, archeometric and archeobiological analyses will be combined and analyzed by means of mathematical, economical and computer science concepts and models, in order to build a multi-tier explanatory pattern which can be applied also to other early foci of urbanization in the Near East and elsewhere. We thus hope to gain a much richer historical framework and a sophisticated predictive model of general validity: until now no studies have ever focused on explanations of these phenomena on such an integrated scale

Max ERC Funding

1 105 240 €

Duration

Start date: 2010-04-01, End date: 2014-03-31

Project acronymEINITE

Project"Economic Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300-1800"

Researcher (PI)Guido Alfani

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITA COMMERCIALE LUIGI BOCCONI

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2011-StG_20101124

Summary"The aim of EINITE is to clarify the dynamics of economic inequality in Europe from the late Middle Ages up until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Very little data about economic inequality during such an early period is available today. Apart from some studies focussed on single years and small areas (usually only one city or a village), the only European region which has been the object of a large research project is Holland.
The project will collect an extensive database about economic inequality, mainly of wealth (for which better documentation exists), focussing on Italy from a wider European perspective. Archival research will be concentrated on Italy where particularly good sources exist, but the Italian case will be placed in the varying European context. Published data and existing databases from all over the continent will be collected as terms of comparison. The final version of the project database will be made public.
The activity of ENITE will be organized around four main research questions:
1) What is the long-term relationship between economic growth and inequality?
This is the main question to which the others are all connected.
2) What were the effects of plagues and other severe mortality crises on property structures?
3) What is the underlying relationship between immigration and urban inequality?
4) How was economic inequality perceived in the past, and how did its perception change over time?
The project will also help to explain the origin of the property structures and inequality levels to be found on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Then, it will provide information relevant to the ‘Kuznets curve’ debate. Overall the project will lead to a better knowledge of economic inequality in the past, which is also expected to help understanding recent developments in inequality levels in Europe and elsewhere."

"The aim of EINITE is to clarify the dynamics of economic inequality in Europe from the late Middle Ages up until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Very little data about economic inequality during such an early period is available today. Apart from some studies focussed on single years and small areas (usually only one city or a village), the only European region which has been the object of a large research project is Holland.
The project will collect an extensive database about economic inequality, mainly of wealth (for which better documentation exists), focussing on Italy from a wider European perspective. Archival research will be concentrated on Italy where particularly good sources exist, but the Italian case will be placed in the varying European context. Published data and existing databases from all over the continent will be collected as terms of comparison. The final version of the project database will be made public.
The activity of ENITE will be organized around four main research questions:
1) What is the long-term relationship between economic growth and inequality?
This is the main question to which the others are all connected.
2) What were the effects of plagues and other severe mortality crises on property structures?
3) What is the underlying relationship between immigration and urban inequality?
4) How was economic inequality perceived in the past, and how did its perception change over time?
The project will also help to explain the origin of the property structures and inequality levels to be found on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Then, it will provide information relevant to the ‘Kuznets curve’ debate. Overall the project will lead to a better knowledge of economic inequality in the past, which is also expected to help understanding recent developments in inequality levels in Europe and elsewhere."

Max ERC Funding

995 400 €

Duration

Start date: 2012-01-01, End date: 2016-12-31

Project acronymEMoBookTrade

ProjectThe Early Modern Book Trade: An Evidence-based Reconstruction of the Economic and Juridical Framework of the European Book Market

Researcher (PI)Angela NUOVO

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2015-AdG

SummaryThis project will explore the idea – and gather the evidence to prove it – that the so-called printing revolution does not consist in a change in book-making technology but in the process, prolonged over the entire course of the early modern age, of the formation of the printed book market and the creation of readers as purchasers and consumers of books. In order to demonstrate this, the project will reconstruct the economic and legal framework of the European book market by applying an interdisciplinary approach to the economic study of book history. By using unique and hitherto unexplored documentary evidence, this project addresses four fundamental questions relating to the growth of a fully developed book trade and the rise of a society of book consumers within the social and religious context of early modern Europe: the economic issue of book prices; the juridical and political issue of the book privilege system (which in turn influenced the process of book pricing); the management of the bookselling business (focusing on businesses in two major cities in the European book trade, Venice (Bernardino Giunti) and Antwerp (Christopher Plantin)); the technique of building and managing a transnational network for book distribution and sale (analyzing groundbreaking new evidence, an entire year (1522) of correspondence from a Venetian wholesale bookseller, Giovanni Bartolomeo Gabiano). These four research areas will feed into an overarching project which will examine the impact of books and the access of readers to them, together with the development in patterns of cultural consumption which meant that printed books lost the luxury status which they had had throughout the incunabula period to become transformed into ‘popoluxe’ goods.

This project will explore the idea – and gather the evidence to prove it – that the so-called printing revolution does not consist in a change in book-making technology but in the process, prolonged over the entire course of the early modern age, of the formation of the printed book market and the creation of readers as purchasers and consumers of books. In order to demonstrate this, the project will reconstruct the economic and legal framework of the European book market by applying an interdisciplinary approach to the economic study of book history. By using unique and hitherto unexplored documentary evidence, this project addresses four fundamental questions relating to the growth of a fully developed book trade and the rise of a society of book consumers within the social and religious context of early modern Europe: the economic issue of book prices; the juridical and political issue of the book privilege system (which in turn influenced the process of book pricing); the management of the bookselling business (focusing on businesses in two major cities in the European book trade, Venice (Bernardino Giunti) and Antwerp (Christopher Plantin)); the technique of building and managing a transnational network for book distribution and sale (analyzing groundbreaking new evidence, an entire year (1522) of correspondence from a Venetian wholesale bookseller, Giovanni Bartolomeo Gabiano). These four research areas will feed into an overarching project which will examine the impact of books and the access of readers to them, together with the development in patterns of cultural consumption which meant that printed books lost the luxury status which they had had throughout the incunabula period to become transformed into ‘popoluxe’ goods.